Nationalizing the Past: Historians as Nation Builders in Modern Europe (Writing the Nation Book 7)

Historians traditionally claim to be myth-breakers, but national history since the nineteenth century shows quite a record in myth-making. This exciting new volume compares how national historians in Europe have handled the opposing pulls of fact and fiction and shows which narrative strategies have contributed to the success of national histories. Although professional historians have traditionally claimed to be 'myth-breakers', national history from the Nineteenth century onwards shows that they have quite a record in 'myth-making'. This tension between myth-making and breaking is actually still with us today. This volume makes a truly comparative and transnational analysis of how some of the most important national historians in Europe have handled the opposing pulls of fact and fiction and which narrative strategies have contributed to the success of national histories. What role did the narrative framing of beginnings, middles and endings of national histories play? How were continuities and discontinuities constructed? How did the discourse of 'the nation' integrate narratives of ethnicity, race, class, religion and gender? This volume also shows how Twentieth century dictatorships have influenced the ways in which the past has been 'nationalized' by historians and asks whether national history as a genre still has a future in the Twenty-first century Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction....Pages 1-25 Narrativizations of the Past: The Theoretical Debate and the Example of the Weimar Republic....Pages 26-48 Double Trouble: A Comparison of the Politics of National History in Germany and in Quebec....Pages 49-70 Setting the Scene for National History....Pages 71-85 A Strained Relationship: Epistemology and Historiography in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany and Britain....Pages 86-106 Wars of Religion in National History Writing at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: P. J. Blok, Karl Lamprecht, Ernest Lavisse and Henri Pirenne....Pages 107-127 Heretics into National Heroes: Jules Michelet’s Joan of Arc and František Palacký’s John Hus....Pages 128-148 History and Politics: Interpretations of Early Modern Conquest and Reformation in Victorian Ireland....Pages 149-169 Narrating the Building of a Small Nation: Divergence and Convergence in the Historiography of Estonian ‘National Awakening’, 1868–2005....Pages 170-191 Theorizing and Practising ‘Scientific’ History in South-Eastern Europe (Nineteenth–Twentieth Century): Spyridon Lambros and Nicolae Jorga....Pages 192-208 Theatre Histories and the Construction of National Identity: The Cases of Norway and Finland....Pages 209-232 Nation, State and Empire: The Historiography of ‘High Imperialism’ in the British and Russian Empires....Pages 233-258 Ends of Empire: Decolonizing the Nation in British and French Historiography....Pages 259-281 Inside-Out: The Purposes of Form in Friedrich Meinecke’s and Robert Aron’s Explanations of National Disaster....Pages 282-297 Clio and Class Struggle in Socialist Histories of the Nation: A Comparison of Robert Grimm’s and Eduard Bernstein’s Writings, 1910–1920....Pages 298-318 Rewriting National History in Post-War Central Europe: Marxist Syntheses of Austrian and Czechoslovak History as New National Master Narratives....Pages 319-340 Nineteenth Century Liberal Master Narratives Revisited: A Comparison of Gyula Szekfuű and Benedetto Croce....Pages 341-357 The Lombard League in Nineteenth-Century Historiography, c.1800–c.1850....Pages 358-383 History of Civilization: Transnational or Post-Imperial? Some Iberian Perspectives (1870–1930)....Pages 384-403 After the Deluge: The Impact of the Two World Wars on the Historical Work of Henri Pirenne and Marc Bloch....Pages 404-425 Rising Like a Phoenix ... The Renaissance of National History Writing in Germany and Britain since the 1980s....Pages 426-451 Myth in the Writing of European History....Pages 452-479 The Nation, Progress and European Identity in The Rise of Modern Europe....Pages 480-499 Back Matter....Pages 500-529